District A activists upset over Brown’s support over land sale

Councilwoman Helena Brown campaigned on a pledge to be more responsive to constituent needs than her predecessor. She became the first challenger to unseat an incumbent in 12 years in part by painting her opponent as AWOL on vital neighborhood issues.

A couple of neighborhood activists say Brown’s pledge has been broken just 11 days into her term when she supported the city’s sale of a lot in Sherwood Forest to a body shop owner last week instead of saving it for the park land they have sought for years.

Brown would not comment on the matter — or anything else — when I asked her about it today.

The activists and others familiar with a town hall meeting Brown held last week said the new councilwoman gave high praise to the corporate citizenship of the body shop owner.

Two former presidents of the Wrenwood Civic Association said that when the sale came up last year, then-Councilwoman Brenda Stardig called to see what they thought about it. They said they worried that the sale would mean more paved-over land in a neighborhood already at risk of flooding. And an expanded body shop was not something they wanted near their homes or across the street from the neighborhood elementary school.

“I went to the mayor and told her we didn’t have the support of the adjacent community,” Stardig said, “and that I could rally the votes to kill it.” The sale was pulled from the agenda in October before it could face a vote.

But last week it was back on the agenda. Mayor’s spokeswoman Janice Evans said the administration asked Brown’s office if it objected and was told no. The Council voted 17-0 to sell the 8,840-square-foot parcel for $41,990.

W.C. “Dub” Wright and Ann Givens, the activists, were incensed that Brown did not honor their request to tag the item to delay it a week and give them a meeting to make their case against it. It especially hurt, they said, that Brown tagged a project in a different Council district at the same meeting.

“It’s a win for the mayor. It’s a win for the private company. You know what the residents are? We’re just collateral damage,” Wright said.